IN THE PRESS

Nuclear weapons and the legacy of Chornobyl

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - The cover story of The New York Times Magazine of May 4 was "The Thinkable" by Bill Keller, a Times columnist and a senior writer for the magazine. The article dealt with nuclear weapons in " a new nuclear era" during which "such weapons govern our foreign policy more than they have in decades," and at a time when "nuclear proliferation is at the heart of our confrontation with North Korea and Iran, two states for whom the message of Iraq was intended," and when "proliferation is a persistent irritant in our relations with Russia and China."

The long article also includes a section about Ukraine, which renounced and surrendered its nuclear arms in 1994. Mr. Keller wrote:

"In hindsight, you could say that the closing act of the first nuclear age took place in January 1994, when Ukraine agreed to give up the nuclear weapons it had inherited in the break-up of the Soviet Union. It was the last of the former Soviet states to relinquish its unconventional weapons, and probably the only one with the technological wherewithal to override Moscow's centralized control systems and become an overnight nuclear state. But at that time, possession of nuclear weapons was still understood as a serious impediment for a country seeking admission into the Western world. If you wanted to join the party, you checked your nukes at the door. The first Bush administration and then the Clinton administration bargained hard for the surrender of Ukraine's weapons, promising abundant financial aid and a military partnership that Ukrainians hoped would lead to American security guarantees.

"However, an attentive listener back then might have sensed that the old verities were beginning to lose their power. Ukrainian nationalists (including many Ukrainian-Americans) raised a serious clamor for retaining the weapons. Why should Russia, which has a history of throwing its weight around, be a nuclear power and not Ukraine? Who will take us seriously without the Bomb? Some of the diplomats who negotiated the end of Ukraine's nuclear interlude are not so sure that today their appeal would successfully withstand the riptide of nationalism."

The article went on to note that "The second nuclear age was heralded by a rumble under the Rajasthani desert in 1998, as India's newly elected Hindu nationalist government detonated five test blasts. Two weeks later Pakistan followed suit."

A deal that worked

Writing on the op-ed page of The New York Times on April 26, Rose Gottemoeller, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former director on the National Security Council staff, recalled "A Deal That Worked" (the headline for her article).

Ms. Gottemoeller wrote:

"The clash between American and North Korean negotiators this week reminded me of another push to get rid of nuclear weapons: not the 1994 talks with North Korea, which did not succeed in the end, but those with Ukraine, which did. After months at the table with Russia and the United States, the Ukrainians let their 1,900 warheads go to Russia for destruction.

"Although no one expected this week's talks to go smoothly, I sometimes hear that the Ukrainian accord is irrelevant to North Korea because it was a cakewalk. But as an architect of the Ukraine accord, I don't remember it that way. At the time, the Ukrainian Parliament was full of deputies who were determined to hold on to the country's leftover Soviet weapons, to protect themselves from Russia. Former Soviet Rocket Forces officers were swearing allegiance to their new country and claiming they could run an independent nuclear arsenal."

"If Ukraine had kept the warheads, it would have become a source of profound instability in its region. Instead, Ukraine decided to embrace Europe and its neighbors," she added.

The former NSC director explained that three factors were important in that deal: "First, an unequivocal goal, to get the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine, but in a way that ensured Ukraine's security and future in Europe. Second, remorseless attention from the president and vice president - whenever they were needed to muscle or cajole the negotiating partners, they were willing to do so. Third, hard, clear demands on all parties, with deadlines and penalties."

Chornobyl's legacy

The Washington Times on April 26 published a feature article headlined "Chernobyl [sic] legacy lingers" by Elizabeth Manning, deputy international editor of UPA.

She notes the sacrifices of the "liquidators" sent, in the parlance of those days, "to eliminate the consequences of the accident," citing a report by ITAR-TASS that of the 700-strong 731st Battalion of Chornobyl liquidators, only about half are still alive.

"Many of the first wave of workers who rushed to contain the explosion died within hours from the radiation pouring from the shattered reactor. To date epidemiologists place the total deaths somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000, many of which critics say could have been avoided by early safety measures. Moscow, then the capital of the Soviet Union, did not admit the accident for hours even among local populations, nor the scope of the devastation for several days. Meanwhile, people in nearby communities sunbathed and picnicked in the unusually warm spring weather around the May Day holiday, exposing themselves to the flow of radioactive particles ultimately carried by winds for hundreds of miles from the site. Iodine pills to protect from thyroid cancer were not distributed for days and in some cases weeks, when the therapeutic window was largely past," Ms. Manning wrote.

She also noted at the conclusion of her article: "Russian KGB documents declassified earlier this month suggested a record of problems at Chernobyl's four reactors, ranging from inconsistent performance to equipment failures."

Chornobyl anniversary

In a story published on April 27 in the Chicago Tribune, Bennett Ramberg, author of "Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for The Enemy," focused on Chornobyl's sarcophagus - the covering that entombs the plant's stricken reactor.

"Chernobyl [sic] is bleeding. Seventeen years to the month after the world's worst nuclear accident, the "sarcophagus" entombing the reactor is on the verge of collapse risking the further release of radiation. Ukraine and a consortium of nations are in a race to reduce the peril. Plans call for construction to begin on a new sarcophagus in 2004. It is uncertain whether the current structure will survive until then," he wrote.

The author points out that "The passage of time has dimmed the impact of the accident and the nuclear industry is bent on a renaissance." After pointing to the safety challenges that today confront the nuclear energy industry, including their vulnerability to terrorist attack, Mr. Ramberg concludes: "When the Soviet Union built Chernobyl, it touted the reactor as a marvel of engineering. Today's bleeding Chernobyl reminds us - much as the recent Columbia space shuttle disaster does - that we cannot have too much hubris when it comes to managing complicated technology. Because of the avoidable risks posed by atomic power, prudence dictates that the United States contemplate its phase out in the years to come."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 11, 2003, No. 19, Vol. LXXI

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